If you’ve nothing much else to do at the end of May, get yourself along to the French seaside town of Dieppe. Facing the English Channel, Dieppe is a lovely spot and has some very interesting Second World War history, too. For our purposes, though, the more important bit is that for the past 70 years, Dieppe has been the home of the Alpine brand.
It’s a big year for Alpine, isn't it?
Certainly is. This year, Alpine will not only be celebrating its 70th birthday - Jean Rédélé’s first lightweight sports car, named for his favourite mountainous rally stages, emerged from his Dieppe base in 1955 - but it will also be showing off its new A390.
This will be a crucial model for the growing Alpine range. Having been reborn with the 2017 A110 (honestly, one of our favourite cars of all) and having expanded into both electric cars and the hatchback market with the gorgeous new A290 (a hotter version of the electric Renault 5 EV), Alpine is now expanding into a bigger, more luxurious market.
How big and how luxurious?
Well, not too big and not too luxurious. Although the new A390 will indeed be a five-seater, Alpine has said that it will be a ‘sports fastback’ and that it will include ‘a concentration of technology that reinvents the legendary sportiness of the A110 in a five-seater vehicle.’ The A390 will be a fully electric model, which means it will doubtless be heavy, but Alpine has promised that clever torque-vectoring through its (likely, still not confirmed) triple-motor setup will make it feel super-agile and ‘pointy.’
The A390 will make its official debut in Dieppe on the 27th of May, just a couple of days before the full-on Alpine 70th birthday celebrations get underway, with the ‘Grand Rassemblement Alpine’, which will include classic models including the famous A310 sports car used as a high-speed interceptor by the Gendarmerie.
What happens after that?
The reveal of the A390 will mean that Alpine’s all-electric ‘Dream Garage’ will be half-complete. Next up will be the trickiest of all to get right: the battery-powered successor to the brilliant A110 coupe, and that will be followed up in 2028 by an A310, which is being billed as Alpine’s rival to the Porsche 911.
We’ll bring you more on all this lovely Alpine goodness as we get it.